Our say: Progress against breast cancer on many fronts

Wendi Winters / Capital Gazette

One of two new signs announcing Bosom Buddies Way was placed on a private roadway near the Belcher Pavilion on the Anne Arundel Medical Center campus by AAMC officials to honor a non-profit organization for its $1.5 million in cumulative donations in support of the Rebecca Fortney Breast Center.

One of two new signs announcing Bosom Buddies Way was placed on a private roadway near the Belcher Pavilion on the Anne Arundel Medical Center campus by AAMC officials to honor a non-profit organization for its $1.5 million in cumulative donations in support of the Rebecca Fortney Breast Center. (Wendi Winters / Capital Gazette)

Breast cancer may still affect nearly 250,000 American women a year (and some men as well), but the outlook for these patients has never been better.

There has been medical progress, some of it discussed in stories we published on Friday to mark October as Breast Cancer Awareness Month. Advancements in screening technology and genetic testing have bred an awareness of the condition's complexity and variability.

"We call it breast cancer, but it's really 100 to 1,000 different diseases," said Dr. Lorraine Tafra, who heads the Rebecca Fortney Breast Center at Anne Arundel Medical Center. Along with this awareness has come treatment that is more individualized and, frequently, less aggressive than would have been used in the past. "Our big overall theme is 'less is more,'" Tafra said.

Along with this, public awareness has steadily increased and fundraising efforts have become more effective. This week AAMC honored the work of one such organization by renaming a roadway on its Parole campus Bosom Buddies Way. In a decade of work, that charity has raised more than $1 million to purchase equipment used to treat breast cancer patients at the Fortney Center and at AAMC's Kent Island Breast Center.

The fundraising and publicity have bolstered awareness — which can be a bigger life-saver than even the newest equipment, with more women practicing self-examination, agreeing to recommended mammograms and educating themselves on risk factors.

The disease has hardly been defeated — it's still a killer, and one out of every eight women is expected to have to deal with it at some point in their lives. But viewed over the perspective of many years, breast cancer is in retreat. And the signs for more progress are bright.

Summit meeting

No such optimism is in view yet about Maryland's epidemic of opioid use and overdoses. The number of deaths statewide linked to opioid use has increased more than 100 percent in five years.

The death toll shows that the state's efforts to step up prevention and treatment are not working, County Executive Steve Schuh said this week.

Still, the venue at which Schuh spoke — a summit of officials from Anne Arundel, Harford and Howard counties — offers hope. The mere fact that such a meeting was organized shows that local officials recognize the problem and are searching for effective strategies.

While law enforcement remains vital, we think Lt. Gov. Boyd Rutherford, who chairs a state task force on the issue, is right in stressing early education and public outreach. Equally vital is cooperation across all levels of government — and we're hoping the summit is one indication this cooperation is taking shape.